White Plume Moth with Hooked Wingtips

2015 May 2

This pure-white plume moth from near the porch light on August 10, 2014 has a wingspan of 14 mm (a bit over half an inch), and has a fairly distinct hook at the tip of each wing.

Plume moths are notorious for being hard to identify, since a lot of them are brown shading to white (and evidently a lot of them vary from brown to white even within a single species)> But, from the body and wing shape, this one looks like it is at least related to the Morning Glory Plume Moth, Emmelina monodactyla

The wings are tightly rolled together so that it is impossible to tell that there are forewings and hindwings, but they do in fact have four wings, just like other moths.

According to the stub article on Wikipedia, the Morning Glory Plume Moths are, in fact, sometimes this white, and are found all around the Northern Hemisphere. I suppose they could be pests if you grow morning glories, but Sandy has been planting them for some years with no sign of any serious insect infestations, so I doubt that that these moths are of any agricultural importance.

Comments are closed.